Campus Protests
- Thread starter Bonyduck Campersang
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Exactly. Have you heard the Prime Minister mudslinging Labour during PMQs because one of them didn't support genocide in Sudan with enough vehemence? Have any MPs been suspended for criticising the gangs in Haiti? When the Russia army invaded Ukraine, how much did the papers make it about how unsafe ethnic Russians in London feel? How many billions of dollars is America directly sending to Myanmar for its military?
Edward is right about it being used as a distraction from domestic evils; see what's happened to the Labour party, and Sunak is still deflecting by challenging their commitment to vicarious Israeli jingoism.
Bonyduck Campersang
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Trinity College Dublin divests from firms involved in Israel's occupation of Palestine
Ireland's top university says it shares the horror its students feel over the ongoing assault on Gaza
www.middleeasteye.net
Bonyduck Campersang
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This is amazing. We have one poster disparaging protesters because they're harming themselves for no good cause, and another poster disparaging protesters because they're not being harmed for their actions.
These same protesters who are missing their exams, braving police brutality, having Zionists taking pics of their faces to post them all over the internet, and Zionist business owners and companies threatening to blacklist them from employment.
So much so that they moved to ban TikTok because people were becoming more preoccupied with foreigners killing foreigners.
Also calling the Palestinian conflict 'foreigners killing foreigners' is a bit rich considering that Israel is for all practical purposes and intent the 51st state of the US.
Lexicus
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Because we (in the US; idk about y'all) pay taxes directly into it.
Lexicus
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This is a goddamn fantastic post.
EnglishEdward
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I am not disparaging those protesters because they are not being harmed.
The US is simply not like Gaza or Iran where protesters are very much harmed.
This is all, essentially, true, and why communism is the only solution.
Unless they're black. Or as we call them here, African-Americans (even if they aren't).
EnglishEdward
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That is because Black (BLM) protesters threaten the local power structures in US states.
Protests about foreigners killing foreigners do not.
Bonyduck Campersang
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Protestors’ demands of cutting financial support to Israel threatens local power structures.
Bonyduck Campersang
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Again with 'foreigners killing foreigners' bit, completely ignoring how heavily the US is involved in the conflict
Bonyduck Campersang
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Which people? Because it's certainly not the people who're protesting against Israel, and it's certainly not the people who denounce anti-Israel protesters as anti-American
EnglishEdward
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BLM protests demanding the defunding of the police directly
threaten the local police power that oppresses them.
Student protests regarding Gaza to end federal supplies of weaponry
do not impact the power structure local to the particular campus.
Student protests demanding the colleges disinvest from Israel may result
in disinvestment but that is long term and while it may have an impact on
the financial system that is unlikely to be particularly significant; the financial
system has already set up many ethical investment funds; so it is unlikely
to have much impact on the power structure local to the particular campus.
Until US citizens are getting killed, it is very much foreigners killing foreigners.
I have never denied the US governmernt is involved.
Those US citizens who are not students, not Jewish and not members of the Palestinian diaspora.
From their perspective the killing of any US citizens first occured when Hamas attacked Israel,
but apart from that they may well perceive Gaza as foreigners killing foreigners.
The student protests are only likely to become a problem to the government if protest extends outside the student
community to the general US community. During the Vietnam war, US conscripts were being killed so protest became
more widespread. Way I see it is that Joe Biden and co think that as long as no US forces being killed, they are alright.
No, indeed, but by design those people are not the politically-represented ones - which is, by and large, suburbanly-situated professionals. As that skews this thing called liberal you get this thing where "normal" people think Republicans are on the fringe, even though the vast majority of Americans who aren't straight up "leave me alone" are something closer to "get gubmint away from me." It's impossible to blame them. It's also impossible to sustain indefinitely.
PPQ_Purple
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Not everyone. Just a significant subset of people..
As to why I believe this to be so that is because it is plainly obvious. People, but especially young people act on their emotions all the time without thinking. And it usually ends badly as it obviously will. And how bad depends on the case ranging from wasted time and energy to personal self destruction to ruining the world for all of us.
For example now a bunch of these students are going to get expelled from the ultra expensive once in a lifetime opportunity they have to get a carrier.
Or how many very bad people throughout history have gotten into power thanks you being able to appeal to foolish people who think with their emotions using lies of ideals and a better world.
And who can forget that one idealist kid who thought it would be a good idea to shoot an Austrian noble because he felt that would somehow make the world a better place? How'd that one turn out for him?
These aren't really things that are in question. The question is simply WHY?
I can understand a small child acting that way. Small children don't know any better as their parents and life both have simply not had the time to teach them the basic skills of survival such as impulse control and not sticking everything you find on the ground in your mouth.
But by the time you reach adulthood you should have enough of a brain and basic impulse control to not blindly follow your heart by jumping into a fire just because it feels nice and warm. And people in university should by all counts be the smartest and most capable of their generation (emphasis on the should, sadly). So why is a substantial portion of them throughout the ages acting like someone a decade or two their junior?
It's not really a duality as much as just basic human nature and behavior. I am just probably being way too analytical in explaining it. And that might be confounding the conversation.
We humans are constantly exposed to all sorts of stimuli in life that inevitably conjure all sorts of chemical responses that we might call emotions. We get annoyed at a tantrum child, angry at someone being slow in traffic, cheerful over something good happening, upset over something we see on TV, horny because we see a good looking coworker etc. That's normal.
But you wouldn't just go and punch out a child throwing a tantrum in public because it's annoying. You know that this would not solve your problem. All it would do is make your problems even worse. So you take control of your emotions and decide to just grit your teeth and adapt to the world around you.
You learn to tolerate screaming children. And you do so not because children throwing tantrums in public is a good thing that should exist in this world. It is plainly NOT. It's an evil that in a perfect world would not exist. But it is an objective fact that children will scream and throw tantrums for as long as bad parents who can't control them exist. So your choices are either to suffer for the rest of the life every time a child misbehaves or to toughen up and learn to live with it.
It's just basic normal human behavior for anyone who wants to go through life and remain sane.
It's unproductive because it is not possible. Spending resources on a task that can not be achieved is the definition of pointless waste.
And more often than not unproductive is the best case scenario. These kids are going to get into a lot of trouble because of what they are doing. And history is full of examples of people suffering far worse than being expelled from an ultra expensive school that is a once in a lifetime opportunity for them. Stuff like death.
The graveyards of this world, both metaphorical and real are full of young revolutionaries who thought they were saving it. And yet somehow the world has not yet been saved. So call me cold if you like, but I don't really see any sense in adding to the pile.
They really do. At least if you have any degree of emotional maturity and impulse control. You just don't think about these things in such an analytical way. But we do it every day when ever we adapt to our environment by changing our behavior.
Oh, I feel for them. I just refuse to do anything about those feelings because I know that there is nothing I can do about it and thus the only thing I would achieve is waste my time and get upset over stuff that is unchanging.
When it comes to the genocide in Palestine my options are to gorge my self on news about it thus making my self upset and achieve NOTHING, Make pointless political gesture that might get me into trouble and can achieve NOTHING anyway or change the channel and get on with my life trying not to think too hard about yet another horrible thing happening in the world.
Only one of those three leads to a net positive outcome.
And sure, in a perfect, or even just non terrible world we wouldn't be faced with such choices. But this is not such a world. It's reality. And in real life if in your travels you should meet with an unstoppable force and your options are to either try and change the laws of nature to make it stop or step out of the way the sensible person steps out of the way.
I can honestly say I didn't expect 21st student protests on campus to be compared to the assassination that in part lead to WW1.
You're acting as though the third choice has a different level of impact, and you're assuming the first two have none. Even if they do, you're not making a logically-superior choice when guaranteeing the same outcome.
You missed: and achieve NOTHING.
You're acting as though the third choice has a different level of impact, and you're assuming the first two have none. Even if they do, you're not making a logically-superior choice when guaranteeing the same outcome.
